Anthropological Foundation of Education

Anthropological Foundation of Education
 Culture, Characteristics, Categories and Approaches
 Kinship, Decent, and Marriage
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Culture is the patterns of learned and shared behavior and beliefs of a particular social, ethnic, or age group.
The goal of a cultural anthropologist is to learn about another culture by collecting data about how the world economy and political practices effect the new culture that is being studied.
Forms of Culture
 material culture – consists of tangible things like houses, clothing, tools, utensils, automobiles, TV, etc.
 non-material – refers to what is symbolic or intangibles such as sentiments, folkways, mores, system of beliefs and knowledge.
 Folkways – traditional ways of doing things in a certain culture e.g. pamamanhikan
 Mores – heavily sanctioned folkways for group survival and are accepted without question as they embody moral views of the group e.g. ulog of the igorot.
 custom – a habitual practice, e.g. kissing the hands of the elders.
 Beliefs – part of non-material culture, e.g. the belief of the enkantos

Characteristics of Culture
 Culture is an adaptive mechanism
 Cultures No Longer Exist in Isolation
 Culture is learned
 Culture Gives Us a Range of Permissible Behavior Patterns
 People Usually are not Aware of Their Culture
 Culture change
 We Do Not Know All of Our Own Culture
 Culture Gives Us a Range of Permissible Behavior Patterns
Five Distinct Categories of Anthropology
 Applied Anthropology – The practical application of anthropological data, methodology, perspective and theory to asses and solve contemporary social problems.
 Archaeology – The study of past cultures based on the excavation of their habitation, burial, and environmental sites
 Biological Anthropology – Tracks the biological evolution of humanity through genetic inheritance, primatology and the fossil record.
 Cultural